What you need to Know to Prevent Embezzlement

by Suzanne Kearns on August 20, 2012

If you’ve ever talked to business owners who’ve dealt with embezzlement, you likely detected their astonishment that the perpetrator was someone they trusted. That’s what makes the crime so heinous. Yet it’s a real threat that few entrepreneurs know much about — until it happens to them.
What do you need to know about this crime?
First: Embezzlement is on the rise. In a report by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, “Occupational Fraud: A Study of the Impact of an Economic Recession” (PDF), 54 percent of the certified fraud examiners surveyed said that fraud has increased in the past year (and about half of this group believe it’s due to increased financial pressure). Some 48 percent of survey participants said that embezzlement in particular was on the rise. Ninety percent expect that fraud, especially embezzlement, will continue to increase.
Embezzlement doesn’t just happen at large corporations. A separate report conducted by the ACFE, “2012 Report to the Nations,” states that smaller organizations suffered the largest median losses between 2010 and 2012, mainly because they had fewer anti-fraud controls in place. The report concluded that occupational fraud is a “significant threat to small businesses.”

Read more: http://blog.intuit.com/money/what-you-need-to-know-and-do-about-embezzlement/#ixzz24bOzZ02z